


Rat Race

by Rhaized



Category: Luther (TV)
Genre: Crime Solving, F/M, Graduate School, Narcissism, Slow Burn, These two are kind of a mess together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21905347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhaized/pseuds/Rhaized
Summary: Alice disagreed. At the end of the day, nothing ultimately mattered—not the dimensions and implications of the nearest black hole, not the probability of collision, not some silly old manuscript. Not anything.Except maybe Luther. That part Alice was still trying to work out.-or-Slight AU where Alice is still a PhD student when she meets Luther. She decides for him to be her main project, as her dissertation is profoundly boring and there are certain investigations in her lab that need to be taken care of.
Relationships: John Luther/Alice Morgan
Comments: 17
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this might be an interesting take to write, as Alice is devilishly brilliant yet strikes me as the kind who'd not do well in the structured system of academia. And I love the Alice and Luther dynamic too much not to try this idea out.
> 
> Loose drabbles for now. Might expand as I go on!

**Rat Race**

* * *

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class or something?” Alice and Luther were walking down the side streets of London, a few blocks away from the police station. It was a sunny yet chilly fall day. Alice had called him, insisting they meet for no reason in particular. As she does. 

“How infantilizing,” she snickered, eyes bright as she glanced over at him. “PhD students stop taking classes after a certain point, as you very well know.”

“So then what do you do all day?”

“Think of you, mostly.” She was blunt and it surprised him. It surprised _her_ how much it surprised him, because they had known each other long enough for him to understand this about her. To understand that for whatever reason, she was fixated on him like she’d never been before with another human being. That he was _different._

How funny it was, really, for her to have met him during his formal duties and to now be his… whoever she was to him.

She wasn’t lying to him, either. Alice found her doctoral program absolutely and pitifully _boring_ and would much rather know what Luther was out unearthing. Dark matter and astrophysics were complicated, to be sure, and there were still many things about space neither Alice nor the larger scientific community could fathom, and yet… She lost interest quickly, after diving into projects at full-speed with full force.

Her dissertation supervisor chided her about this over and over again. _If only you could pay attention long enough to finish something!_ He’d shout, slamming an incomplete article manuscript or other failure du jour on the table in front of her. _This could have changed how we do things! This could have really meant something!_

But, Alice disagreed. At the end of the day, nothing ultimately mattered—not the dimensions and implications of the nearest black hole, not the probability of collision, not some silly old manuscript. Not anything.

Except maybe Luther. That part Alice was still trying to work out. 

"I've got to go now," Luther said to her, his steps stilling as he put his hands in his pockets and squinted over to the left of them. "Duty calls."

"So it does," she drawled, the smile not reaching her eyes as he nodded and then walked away, his overcoat flying slightly in the wind. 

One day, she thought as he vanished from sight, duty would be irrelevant. Duty would be a time of old. Duty would never interfere again. 

* * *

***

* * *

"It is so kind of you to grace us with your presence." Alice's professor glared at her from under the rim of his glasses as she strolled up to their lab meeting, her heels clicking and her handbag swinging from side to side. 

"I have arrived," she sang, dropping her belongings into one chair while plopping down into another. "Now, what mundane announcements and reports have I missed? Please, do go on."

A student or two snorted while another three or four rolled their eyes and the professor simply shook his head and continued with what he had been saying. Alice wasn't even listening. Lab procedure, she thought she heard him say—telescope time, maybe he'd mentioned. She looked out the window and back up at the sky she had been studying just the night before, outside of her apartment. 

What a world up there, existing within and among their very own. How much more fascinating and exciting. And how far away. Alice had spent the first couple years of her college degree taking measurements and learning dimensions before trying things out herself in her doctoral work. She still never had the answers she seeked, as hard as she'd sometimes try. That's what enticed her about it. She was never enough for it. She couldn't just will her way into discovering new knowledge. 

That's not how learning works, the educational psychologists would say. Learning is messy and takes time with guided practice and a healthy dose of failure. Learning is imprecise. Learning is troublesome. 

_Boring._ As thrilling as the challenge and actual science is, anything that requires that much time and diligence is _boring._

And the longer Alice sat there and existed in that lab space, she really wondered why she was wasting her talents like this. Any thick-brained idiot could get through a PhD program if they tried hard enough. The system of school was set up to reward those who were obedient, diligent, and willing to sacrifice their personal freedom. Alice didn't try because she didn't have to, but the others tried. And what was the thrill in that, succeeding at something others devoted their entire lives to in order to do somewhat well? What was the point of giving up a part of yourself like that? 

Some of science was exciting. Alice couldn't deny that. She wouldn't be there if it weren't. But looking out the window again at the bustle of the city, she sometimes wondered if she missed her true calling in life and if she was settling for something that was passable. 

* * *

***

* * *

They were out to breakfast before he went into the station and she to the lab, a rare opportunity to sit and simply banter back-and-forth. 

“Some creamer in your coffee, love?” the waitress asked as she came around to their table.

“No, thank you,” Alice replied sweetly, gazing up at her. “I find your skim milk creamer revolting.”

Luther choked into his coffee as the waitress stared and then huffed away, looking back over her shoulder. 

“Wow," Luther eventually got out, wiping his face with a napkin. "She must think you’re a bitch.”

“She wouldn’t be the first." Alice smiled wide as she and Luther locked eyes and laughed. Easy as always—never entirely serious, while never anything but.

Alice could get used to this. As long as this wasn't _all_ there was. 

* * *

***

* * *

“Fancy a drink after the presentation tonight, Alice?” 

A well-dressed chap with a green sweater vest and loosely-fitted tie leaned against Alice’s cubicle in her university office, grinning at her. He was nervous, she could tell, for the way he ran his hand all-too-casually through his slightly too-long blonde hair. She could see it in his eyes, too, which looked at her but didn’t seem to _really_ look at her.

How annoying. 

“Nope,” she simply responded, turning back to her computer screen.

She sometimes forgot that people felt things during times such as these. It took her a delayed moment to realize the momentousness of this kind of moment. Flattery, at being asked out on a date; nervous, to be the one doing the asking. And then completely ashamed, to be rejected so flat out and so publicly in the open, common area. 

Maybe he shouldn't have asked her like that, then. 

In her peripheral vision, she saw his face drop and his hands flutter toward his pockets. “Oh, erm, okay. Maybe, uh…” _Don’t say it,_ she thought, moving from her Word doc to an Excel file. _Please, please, PLEASE don't say it..._ "Maybe another time?" 

"No." The answer was no. Of _course_ the answer was a firm, simple no. How could it _not_ be no? How could he, some random boy likely 8 years her senior whom she'd never remembered speaking to, possibly think they had a chance of getting together? Why were men and academics so oblivious? 

He was boring. He was predictable. He wasn't at all what Alice wanted. 

None of them were. 

She couldn't help but sigh and pack up her things, extraordinarily bored. Again.

* * *

***

* * *

"I wonder what my professor would say if he saw you here." Alice absolutely beamed as Luther was hunched over at her cubicle, using her computer since his own office network had been tapped and Alice had found a way to circumvent all the university Spyware. It was illegal, but she did it anyway in a fashion no one could trace. "Perhaps he'd think I'm a naughty, naughty girl."

The corner of Luther's lips twitched as he typed away. "Yeah? Do you _want_ him to think you're naughty?" 

"But of course," she answered, moving her books aside to lean against the corner of the desk, her left thigh only inches away from Luther's fingers. "I surely want him and all the other fools at this school to think I'm getting _some_ kind of action."

"And are you?" 

He was still looking at the screen, but Alice could see his eyes twitching to look over at her instead. If he moved his hands just a fraction, he'd brush against her bare skin. 

"Wouldn't you like to know," she drawled, crossing her ankles together and leaning back against the table. 

They never really talked about their feelings. This was as close as it got. Suggestive comments pitched to one another in carefully-controlled manners. A flash of skin. A wandering eye. A lopsided smile. It was their thing, and striking the right balance of it was part of the chase and part of the excitement. For open books and easy reveals were Alice's most hated thing: _boring._

"I've got him," Luther suddenly said, scribbling on a piece of paper before jumping out of the seat and heading toward the door. 

"That's it, then?" Alice called after him. "Only here to use me for my computer?" 

"Yes," he called back, and then he was gone, and Alice smiled. 

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Alice had a hunch her lab advisor was cheating on his wife. So naturally it was her sacred duty to find out the truth. 

Professor Adam Larson was a boring, old white man, as his name would suggest. He was 62 years old and balding at the front. He wasn’t overweight, as some of the other professors were, but wasn’t exactly  _ in shape,  _ either. His mistress extraordinaire was none other than another professor—from the theatre department. So  _ much  _ more lively than him.

She taught drama and was devilishly good at it. Alice sat in on her rehearsals sometimes, sitting in the back with her feet propped up and big sunglasses on. The woman—Stephanie Drawling—was larger than life with her gestures and hand movements, putting on a performance of her own as she instructed her students in the throes and woes of drama.

“More  _ spit  _ into it, darling!” she called to a talentless brown-haired woman during one session. The hopeless lass was working herself to the bone trying to make her face appear sad as the scene called for. “Allow yourself to  _ feel  _ the emotions of your character!”

“Lead with your  _ hips _ !” she sang to another, mimicking the intended movement herself to the students’ embarrassment and Alice’s utter delight. Unlike Professor Larson, Professor Drawling had  _ character.  _ She had  _ energy.  _ She could see why the woman would be so appealing. Alice was almost attracted to her herself.

“Why, hello there,” Stephanie said to her as she came up to her after class, her smile wide. She was so genuine, and so trusting. “Are you in the theatre department, dear? Do I know you?”

“I was just passing through,” Alice said softly, watching the woman’s brow furrow, “and just wanted to say I admire your teaching and your  _ dedication. _ ”

“You really shouldn’t do things like that, you know,” Luther told her later that night as they met up for a drink. They were in a crowded bar full of primarily undergraduate students. It was on the far side of town where no one would recognize Luther, but Alice didn’t mind. Any time spent with him was a good time indeed. Especially when in public.

“And why not? Going to arrest me, Mr. Luther?”

“I might,” he offered back, leaning in closer to her. “Most people don’t take kindly to being stalked.”

“You didn’t seem to mind,” she pouted back, tilting her head and attacking his mouth with the force of her eyes. “And I stalked you more. Along with your  _ wife. _ ”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Oops.” Her eyes locked on his, and she felt the shift in them as the magnetic energy swirled around them. It was suffocating, the way she wanted him and, if she weren’t mistaken, the way he wanted her. Suffocating and intoxicating. “Come over here and dance with me?”

“No,” he gruffed, but a second later she was standing next to him  _ leading with her hips  _ in the way Stephanie Drawling would approve. He couldn’t help but watch and then stand as she extended her hand, although a minute later he got a page and then stormed off, emptying his glass with a quick chug.

Almost, but not quite. As was custom.

* * *

***

* * *

Alice was supposed to present at a conference with her supervisor and a classmate but was running late because she went on a run with Luther.

“You’re sure you can tag along like this?” he asked her as they walked down a crowded street downtown. He was going to question a witness to a recent burglary. “You don’t have something more important to do?”

“Define important,” she drawled, moving closer to him. She wanted to see if their arms would brush and what he would do. She  _ lived  _ for those moments of spontaneous contact.

“Like attending a conference?”

“How did you know about that?”

“You told me about it last week.”

“And you remembered,” she exclaimed pleasantly, feeling bolder as she quite intentionally brushed her fingers against his. “I feel flattered.”

Academic conferences and presentations were the most boring and useless of academic activities. Most of the time everyone just walked around hungover after having drank five too many the night before. She wasn’t missing anything. Professor Larson doing most of the talking because he couldn’t stand to share the spotlight. Her classmate Dave stuttering because he was deathly afraid of public speaking. Alice sharing a few charts and figures and catching the eye of an unsuspecting audience member. 

Same old, same old, really.

“Go on, then,” Luther told her once he’d reached the shop. She stared at him, feigning confusion, and he rolled his eyes. “You’re not about to ruin your career on my account. Bug off to your presentation.”

* * *

***

* * *

Sometimes Alice tried to forget about Luther and focus on other men, but it always ended up the same way.

They’d lock eyes in a coffee shop or on campus or around town. She’d look away, batting her eyelashes and examining a spot very carefully on the ground before looking back at him, her gaze intensifying as he completely melted.

They weren’t  _ all  _ bad lovers. A few of them were even passable, and succeeded in temporarily distracting Alice from how incredibly and utterly  _ boring  _ and  _ uninteresting  _ they were.

  
But none could compare to Luther, Alice determined. She didn’t know what he was like, but she knew it had to be better than  _ this,  _ whatever  _ this  _ even was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found this in my drafts folded and wanted to post it before I forgot! More drabbles.


End file.
